At once he seemed to hear the Bishop's gentle voice:
"I named him Iconoklastes because he trampled to ruin some flower-beds
on which I spent much time and care, and of which I was inordinately
fond."
Ah! . . . That was it! The destroyer of fair bloom and blossom, of
buds of promise; of the loveliness of a tended garden. . . . Was this
then what he seemed to Mora? He, who had forced her to yield to the
insistence of his love? . . . In her chaste Convent cell, she could
have remained true to this Ideal love of her girlhood: and, now that
she knew it to have been called forth by love, could have received,
mentally, its full fruition. Also, in time she might have discovered
the identity of the Bishop with Father Gervaise, and long years of
perfect friendship might have proved a solace to their sundered hearts,
had not he--the trampler upon flower-beds--rudely intervened.
And yet--Mora had been betrothed to him, her love had been his, long
after Father Gervaise had left the land.
How could he win her back to be once more as she was when they parted
on the castle battlements eight years before?
How could he free himself, and her, from these intangible,
ecclesiastical entanglements?
He was reminded of his difficulties when he tried to walk disguised in
the dress of the White Ladies, and found his stride impeded by those
trailing garments. He remembered the relief of wrenching them off, and
stepping clear.
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